The greatest human ever!

homhom
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
Recently I saw Penn & Teller's great Showtime TV show called Bullshit. They did a story about Norman Borlaug who has worked for the last 60 years to feed the billions of people that are starving. He was given the Nobel Peace prize in 1970 and during the introduction they thanked him for saving over a billion lives. That's billion with a 'b'. I read up on him and found this great article. A sample:
Quote:

Perhaps more than anyone else, Borlaug is responsible for the fact that throughout the postwar era, except in sub-Saharan Africa, global food production has expanded faster than the human population, averting the mass starvations that were widely predicted -- for example, in the 1967 best seller Famine -- 1975! The form of agriculture that Borlaug preaches may have prevented a billion deaths.



Did he do it for money, fame, or power? Nope, he did it for love of his brother regardless of race, religion, or politics.



There is no doubt in my mind that Norman Borlaug is the greatest human to have ever graced this planet.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 4
    mattjohndrowmattjohndrow Posts: 1,618member
    sounds like an awesome guy
  • Reply 2 of 4
    xenuxenu Posts: 204member
    Agreed.



    Tens of millions of people owe their lives to this gentleman, and his team ...



    Sir Howard Florey





    My understanding is that he wanted this discovery made free, and given free, to everyone. Unfortunately there are those who want to make money off other people's work.
  • Reply 3 of 4
    cubs23cubs23 Posts: 324member
    Yeah, he came to my college and did a little talking. I wasn't able to attend, probably reading these forums . But yeah, he is the man.
  • Reply 4 of 4
    alcimedesalcimedes Posts: 5,486member
    did you get to the part where he said he regretted what he'd done, because he ended up causing the deaths of millions more through his food programs? never occured to him (at first) that you could feed all these people but since no one taught them to live within the food they had, they all just had a ton more kids. fast forward 20 years and now you have the same areas with people dying off of starvation, only now a few orders of magnitude higher.
Sign In or Register to comment.